| Title |
Generalizing prosodic patterns by a non-vocal learning mammal
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Animal Cognition, September 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s10071-016-1036-8 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Juan M. Toro, Marisa Hoeschele |
| Abstract |
Prosody, a salient aspect of speech that includes rhythm and intonation, has been shown to help infants acquire some aspects of syntax. Recent studies have shown that birds of two vocal learning species are able to categorize human speech stimuli based on prosody. In the current study, we found that the non-vocal learning rat could also discriminate human speech stimuli based on prosody. Not only that, but rats were able to generalize to novel stimuli they had not been trained with, which suggests that they had not simply memorized the properties of individual stimuli, but learned a prosodic rule. When tested with stimuli with either one or three out of the four prosodic cues removed, the rats did poorly, suggesting that all cues were necessary for the rats to solve the task. This result is in contrast to results with humans and budgerigars, both of which had previously been studied using the same paradigm. Humans and budgerigars both learned the task and generalized to novel items, but were also able to solve the task with some of the cues removed. In conclusion, rats appear to have some of the perceptual abilities necessary to generalize prosodic patterns, in a similar though not identical way to the vocal learning species that have been studied. |
X Demographics
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Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 2 | 50% |
| Unknown | 2 | 50% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 3 | 75% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 25% |
Mendeley readers
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Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Hungary | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 33 | 97% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 10 | 29% |
| Student > Master | 6 | 18% |
| Researcher | 6 | 18% |
| Student > Bachelor | 4 | 12% |
| Professor | 2 | 6% |
| Other | 3 | 9% |
| Unknown | 3 | 9% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Neuroscience | 9 | 26% |
| Psychology | 8 | 24% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 6 | 18% |
| Linguistics | 3 | 9% |
| Environmental Science | 1 | 3% |
| Other | 3 | 9% |
| Unknown | 4 | 12% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 February 2017.
All research outputs
#14,521,849
of 23,698,019 outputs
Outputs from Animal Cognition
#1,154
of 1,487 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#180,877
of 323,268 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Animal Cognition
#21
of 28 outputs
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